Conventionally, in an image forming apparatus for color printing, for example, image forming cartridges respectively contain toners are detachably attached to the body in order to facilitate maintenance. Recently, non-genuine products of image forming cartridges are marketed. If a non-genuine product is attached to an image forming apparatus, the non-genuine product may not be properly adapted to the image forming apparatus, and the image forming apparatus may break down, and the printed result may be poor. Therefore, an image forming cartridge is provided with a non-contact IC tag storing a unique ID indicating that the cartridge is a genuine product, and other information which is useful for maintenance and the like, such as the remaining amount of the developer contained in the image forming cartridge, the operating time of the image forming cartridge, and the date of manufacture of the image forming cartridge.
A single reader/writer device and a single transmitting and receiving antenna are disposed in the body of the image forming apparatus to perform communication via the antenna with the non-contact IC tags. In the image forming apparatus, the single reader/writer device transmits a request for a response signal via the single antenna to the non-contact IC tags, and thereafter receives a response signal from the non-contact IC tags via the antenna. Then, the apparatus manages the replacement timings and the like of the image forming cartridges on the basis of the received response signals. In such an image forming apparatus, it is not required to dispose plural reader/writer devices in accordance with the number of image forming cartridges, and therefore, inexpensive communication system can be obtained (for example, see JP-A-2001-22230).
In such image forming apparatus, however, the single antenna communicates with plural non-contact IC tags. Therefore, the image forming apparatus is not capable of determining which one of the image forming cartridges a response signal read by the reader/writer device relates to, and hence is not capable of determining whether or not image forming cartridges are correctly attached to the body.
Particularly, in an image forming apparatus, the attaching position of an image forming cartridge is determined depending on the color of the toner, and printing is performed on the assumption that image forming cartridges are attached to correct positions. Therefore, in the case where, for example, an image forming cartridge of a black toner is attached to a position to which an image forming cartridge of a yellow toner is to be attached, the image forming apparatus performs printing assuming that the black toner is a yellow toner. Accordingly, a printed result desired by user cannot be obtained.
However, if plural reader/writer devices are disposed in the body in accordance with the number of image forming cartridges, the image forming apparatus becomes very expensive.